With less than 100 days remaining in the office of the first Black male president of the United States, the Campaign for Black Male Achievement hosted a special gathering called “Black Male Re-Imagined (BMR) III” on Tuesday, October 11th at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the nation’s capitol. The third installment of a groundbreaking event series launched in 2010, BMR III featured performances and panel discussions that explored and affirmed how the stories and issues of Black people in America are portrayed by the mainstream media.

Inspired by the new protest album “Transformations Suite” released on October 12th by composer and musician Samora Abayomi Pinderhughes, the six-hour program for BMR III was broken into four sections or “Movements” –Transformations and History; Cycles; Momentum; and Ascension. Each section interspersed on-stage conversations between some of the most prolific minds of the 20th and 21st centuries with performances of dance, music, and short films.